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Titanic exhibition comes Down Under

Jeff Turnbull

Already seen by 22 million people in 72 cities in the United States and Europe, the artefact exhibition of arguably the most famous ship in history, the Titanic, is coming to Australia.

Items ranging from a gentleman's engraved calling card, to chamber pots carrying the liner's White Star emblem through to jewellery and the cherubs that adorned Titanic's stairways will be on show.

The exhibition will be held at the Melbourne Museum from May 14 to October 17 with replicas of the grand staircase, an opulent first class cabin and a less glamorous cabin in steerage for the migrants who were making their way to the United States to start a new life.

The museum's chief executive, Dr Patrick Greene, says the Titanic was the most luxurious liner ever built when it sank after hitting an iceberg on April 15, 1912.

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"It shook the world - it shook their confidence in the new technological age," Dr Greene said.

He said the artefacts salvaged from four kilometres below the ocean's surface are private and poignant glimpses into another era.

"What is particularly fascinating about the Titanic is that it provides us with so much information about a very particular moment in time," Dr Greene said.

"Just like the city of Pompeii the very sudden and tragic end that befell the ship has also preserved it in time - not under tonnes of raw molten ash but on the ocean floor at a depth of 4000 metres."

He said that when the Titanic sailed from Southampton, its passengers and crew represented a very broad cross-section of society - from poor immigrants to members of the most elite circles of American and European societies.

Music impresario Michael Gudinksi, who has seen the exhibition twice while visiting New York, is involved in bringing it to Australia.

"It's a new area for us - the artist can't talk back and there are no backstage riders," he told reporters.

"There are real fans of the Titanic exhibition - it will take you in to the feel of that boat, what it would have been like and how the people were rescued and how many people were left on the boat - it's an amazing story."